The Wounded Passion: The Inner Experience of an Israeli Psychoanalyst

The passion for psychoanalysis, for Israel, bring me to become aware of the passion that is stirred in political social violence, war, terrorism and the consequences for the mind of the subject. The continuous and complex state of war with neighboring Arab states since the establishment of the state of Israel, the melting pot of different ethnicities and cultures that is Israeli society, the encounters between collective memory and individual memory and with people who had survived man-made disasters such as the Shoah; all these drew me very quickly into the realm of social-political violence and its consequences for adults and children, and for Israeli society at large. I also ask, as a psychoanalyst, how I can sustain an “accurate” and complex sense of historical awareness without losing the capacity to maintain the unique, even-hovering state of suspension that characterizes psychoanalysis. For us as psychoanalysts, the question then arises: How can we remain constant and rigorous, and at the same time retain our passion and devotion? And how is passion related to faith, an act of faith, or an area of faith? And the wounded ideals. All these issues will be vividly illustrated by the clinical vignettes presented in this article.